question stringlengths 3 301 | answer stringlengths 9 26.1k | context list |
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why does the connection strength between a phone and a wifi router fluxuate, even when neither are being touched? | Your connection strength isn't just determined by the strength of the signal between you and your phone, it is also impacted by the noise in the environment
While the signal strength may remain constant, if the noise increases because of a leaky microwave or increased WiFi traffic from your neighbor's router then the ... | [
"A mobile handset which is moving in a cell will record a signal strength that varies. Signal strength is subject to slow fading, fast fading and interference from other signals, resulting in degradation of the carrier-to-interference ratio (C/I). A high C/I ratio yields quality communication. A good C/I ratio is a... |
Would taking a cellulase supplement the way lactose intolerant people take lactase allow a human to each grass and other no digestible plant matter? If so, could this be a way of addressing world hunger? | Potentially. It's questionable whether it could provide complete nutrition on its own though, there are limited studies of use of cellulase in the diet of farm animals which so far have only been mildly exploratory.
However, world hunger in the modern age is rarely a problem of production but rather of distribution (t... | [
"Lactase is an enzyme that breaks down the disaccharide lactose to its component parts, glucose and galactose. Glucose and galactose can be absorbed by the small intestine. Approximately 65 percent of the adult population produce only small amounts of lactase and are unable to eat unfermented milk-based foods. This... |
how does a smart phone responds to a touch? | The inside of the screen carries a small charge. Placing an object, like a finger, on the outside that can act as the second half of a capacitor and distorts the charge pattern. The position of the distortion can be traced by the circuitry to know what action to hairdressing on its location
Think about those toys wit... | [
"Handheld technologies use a panel that carries an electrical charge. When a finger touches the screen, the touch disrupts the panel's electrical field. The disruption is registered as a computer event (gesture) and may be sent to the software, which may then initiates a response to the gesture event.\n",
"A prox... |
the relation between inflation, bill denomination and printing money. | All money only exists as a matter of 'trust' by us, of it's ability to buy a 'thing' we want. It is the intermediary between two barters. It has no intrinsic value whatsoever. All money is 'printed' or 'created' out of fresh air by a statutory source (central bank or whomever) and leaked out into the economy by loan... | [
"Conceptually, inflation refers to the general trend of prices, not changes in any specific price. For example, if people choose to buy more cucumbers than tomatoes, cucumbers consequently become more expensive and tomatoes cheaper. These changes are not related to inflation; they reflect a shift in tastes. Inflati... |
can a planet without conditions similar to earth support any life at all, or have we just not found organisms that require other conditions? | It's the latter. We only know life on earth -- life as we know it. It's possible there could be exotic forms of life elsewhere, but we have no idea what it would look like or how to find it. So we focus on the life we understand, because that's what we're best at finding.
To some degree though, we know the chemicals o... | [
"Due to the harsh conditions on the surface, little of the planet has been explored; in addition to the fact that life as currently understood may not necessarily be the same in other parts of the universe, the extent of the tenacity of life on Earth itself has not yet been shown. Creatures known as extremophiles e... |
How were the economic structures during the classical era in the mediterranean cities? | The Roman Empire doesn't seem to have had a formal legal control of business in the same way Medieval cities did with guilds. The question of market fairs is a bit more complex. We know they existed, and were probably controlled through local town governing authorities, but it is difficult to know how this impacted bus... | [
"By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries some cities become powerful states, taking surrounding areas under their control or establishing extensive maritime empires. In Italy medieval communes developed into city-states including the Republic of Venice and the Republic of Genoa. These cities, with populations in... |
how come the train tracks don't blow up when it rains? | > Why hasn't a fuse blown/breaker tripped like it does when I throw my toaster in the bath.
Actually this does happen from time to time. It's pretty rare thanks to good engineering and the fact that most train systems have been around long enough for weak spots that are likely to cause this to have been identified a... | [
"The rain concerned railway officials, who feared that landslides could hit the hillside line serving the city. Local officers organized a patrol to check conditions of the railway, and drove a service vehicle along part of the track, returning minutes before the disaster.\n",
"Though rail tracks were held in pla... |
Why is it so hard to program an effective anti cheat system in online games? | > My question now is, why it is apperently not possible for the game to detect that this kind of information is displayed when it shouldnt.
Simply put, because the "hack" is usually a separate piece of software running on its own, that is telling the game that it is allowed. At least for FPS games in general, hacks ... | [
"There are many facets of cheating in online games which make the creation of a system to stop cheating very difficult; however, game developers and third party software developers have created or are developing technologies that attempt to prevent cheating. Such countermeasures are commonly used in video games, wi... |
why cant heat/any kind of energy be used to create matter when matter can create heat | Theoretically it could be, although from the equation E=mc^2 where E is energy, m is mass and c is the speed of light, you can see that for each small amount of mass you create needs an astronomically huge amount of energy to create it. At the moment this is just totally impractical to do.
To get 1kg of mass, you woul... | [
"Historically, confusion about mass being \"converted\" to energy has been aided by confusion between mass and \"matter\", where matter is defined as fermion particles. In such a definition, electromagnetic radiation and kinetic energy (or heat) are not considered \"matter\". In some situations, matter may indeed b... |
why do doctors move the stethoscope around, rather than just place it on your heart? | Each area that they place the stethoscope allows them to listen to the 4 different valves in your heart. If a murmur (abnormal sound) is heard at a specific area, it can tell the doctor which valve or part of the heart may be affected. | [
"Stethoscopes roughly match the acoustical impedance of the human body, so they transmit sounds from a patient's chest to the doctor's ear much more effectively than the air does. Putting an ear to someone's chest would have a similar effect.\n",
"A doctor will listen to the heart with stethoscope. A \"tumor plop... |
In the US during WWII, how did rationing work on the homefront if people went to a restaurant? Did people have to give the ration coupons/cards to the restaurant in addition to payment? | The restaurants had to collect points in order to buy more stock for their kitchens. They took the points to the local ration board and exchanged them for vouchers that allowed them to buy quantities of food at a time.
Lots more here: _URL_0_ | [
"By the end of 1942, ration coupons were used for nine other items. Typewriters, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, silk, nylon, fuel oil, stoves, meat, lard, shortening and food oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams, jellies, a... |
cell cycle and mitosis? | The cell grows and grows through the G1 phase. When it gets big enough, it enters the S phase, where the DNA replicates. Then it goes to the M phase, mitosis. This is where it splits. The two daughter cells repeat this process. | [
"In cell biology, mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle when replicated chromosomes are separated into two new nuclei. Cell division gives rise to genetically identical cells in which the number of chromosomes is maintained. In general, mitosis (division of the nucleus) is preceded by the S stage of interphase (du... |
the impossible trinity of economics | Free movement of capital allows you to participate in the international economy, particularly the financial aspects of international trade. Restricting it will isolate your economy, reducing its potential growth by restricting the ability to work with investors and companies outside your country.
You also asked about... | [
"The idea of the impossible trinity went from theoretical curiosity to becoming the foundation of open economy macroeconomics in the 1980s, by which time capital controls had broken down in many countries, and conflicts were visible between pegged exchange rates and monetary policy autonomy. While one version of th... |
What is thought to have stabilized earths magnetic field? | I'm a graduate student in earth science, but I'm studying glaciology, not geomagnetism. Nonetheless, I'll give this a go:
The Earth's magnetic field is caused by convection cells in the liquid iron/nickel outer core. It is not known (at least by me) what causes reversals, but my understanding is that they are a chao... | [
"Over the life of the Earth, the orientation of Earth's magnetic field has reversed many times, with geomagnetic north becoming geomagnetic south and vice versa – an event known as a geomagnetic reversal. Evidence of geomagnetic reversals can be seen at mid-ocean ridges where tectonic plates move apart. As magma se... |
Is anything really impossible? | If you can define your initial and final states precisely in quantum mechanical terms, and if you know exactly what quantum theory you're adopting, a probability for going from initial to final state could exist.
As you say, the probabilities of all sorts of silly things happening will be extremely tiny but not zero.... | [
"Statistically \"impossible\" events are often called miracles. For instance, when three classmates accidentally meet in a different country decades after having left school, they may consider this as \"miraculous\". However, a colossal number of events happen every moment on earth; thus extremely unlikely coincide... |
After the Second World War, why did Germany abandon the development of the Panzerkampfwagen VI line of tanks and instead develop the Leopard tanks? | The original Tiger tank had a very large amount of problems, the greatest of which was that Allied medium tanks had equivalent firepower in 1944, just over a year after the Tiger first saw combat, but at half the weight. The Germans realized this, and the Tiger B/Tiger II/King Tiger, the development of which began befo... | [
"After the war, the Germans were given US equipment and the Panzerlehrbataillon armour forces established in April 1956. The Leopard tank project started in November 1956 in order to develop a modern German tank, the \"Standard-Panzer\", to replace the Bundeswehr's United States-built M47 and M48 Patton tanks, whic... |
how can ants jump with these small legs? | O. rixosus as the only ant species that can jump with either its legs or its mandibles. Trap-jaw ants are known for using their powerful jaws to launch themselves into the air, somersaulting several times their own body length to evade predators. | [
"The female worker ants do not have wings and reproductive females lose their wings after their mating flights in order to begin their colonies. Therefore, unlike their wasp ancestors, most ants travel by walking. Some species are capable of leaping. For example, Jerdon's jumping ant (\"Harpegnathos saltator\") is ... |
why do mobile game ads look nothing like the actual game play? | Because it works and false advertising is a vague law that is hard to enforce outside of the U.S.
Just getting people to download your game makes it appear higher on lists that gets more people to download your game, they don't care if you uninstall it right after, their hope is you will download it, put in a bit of ... | [
"One form of in-game mobile advertising is what allows players to actually play. As a new and effective form of advertising, it allows consumers to try out the content before they actually install it. This type of marketing can also really attract the attention of users like casual players. These advertising blur t... |
tessellation (video games) | [NVidia has some good sample images](_URL_0_)
Tessellation basically takes a shape/set of vertices and smooths them by creating more "in between" vertices that try to counteract sharp edges. This can be done dynamically so objects use more polygons the closer they get to the camera (so distant objects aren't as strain... | [
"3D Tetris is a puzzle video game developed by Technology and Entertainment Software and published by Nintendo. It was initially released for the Virtual Boy on March 22, 1996, in North America only. The game allows players to control multiple falling blocks, rotating and positioning them to clear layers in a \"Wel... |
What is the geologist/hydrologist opinion on Fraking to extract shale gas? | Professional hydrogeologist, here. I have ZERO actual experience with fracking, but I know some things about well construction and the failure thereof. I also know about contaminant transport in groundwater, though unconsolidated sediments are my usual playground (as opposed to the actual-rock that shale is).
It appe... | [
"Mining oil shale involves a number of environmental impacts, more pronounced in surface mining than in underground mining. These include acid drainage induced by the sudden rapid exposure and subsequent oxidation of formerly buried materials, the introduction of metals including mercury into surface-water and grou... |
Was there still any undiscovered land left by the time the aviation age came about? | [There were islands discovered with satelite imagery](_URL_0_), but I don't think that's really what you meant. You're more talking about significant land masses.
I think the most important would be Antarctica. The Coastlines had (generally) been mapped in piecemeal efforts, but [significant exploration of the inland ... | [
"Virtually none of the old airport area exists as it did prior to European settlement. Only the foundations of the Eagle Farm Settlement survive, having been covered with fill in 1942. The Allison Engine Testing Stands and Second World War Hangar No. 7 from World War II also survived on the former airport site and ... |
Theoretically, how high must a building/structure be in order for it to be seen from all points on given hemisphere. | 45-deg away from an object on the earth (radius 6378.1 km) an object would have to be 2642 km high to be seen above the horizon.
Your line of sight being tangent to the curvature, you form a right triangle between you, the top of the building, and the center of the earth. The hypotenuse of the triangle is the distanc... | [
"List of buildings under construction which are higher than 90 m, including spires and architectural details. Based on floorcounts and floorheights; buildings without official height (including spires and architectural details) are also included as they are estimated to be higher than 90 m.\n",
"BULLET::::- Scale... |
How does electromagnetic interaction work? | Despite not having mass, photons do carry momentum, so the simplistic view of the photon "bouncing" off of the charge and transferring some momentum to it is not necessarily a bad way to picture it conceptually.
Edit: Just so we're clear, I'm not saying this is the correct picture, but if you're trying to grasp how a ... | [
"The electromagnetic force is responsible for practically all phenomena one encounters in daily life above the nuclear scale, with the exception of gravity. Roughly speaking, all the forces involved in interactions between atoms can be explained by the electromagnetic force acting between the electrically charged a... |
why do classical musicians and singers use sheet music / words whereas any other type of musician / singers learns the music / words. | Refer to this:
_URL_0_
You will also note that in comparison with "other types" of music, classical compositions tend to be more complex and long to be un-intuitive or difficult to memorize and retain reliably. | [
"Classical musicians playing orchestral works, chamber music, sonatas and singing choral works ordinarily have the sheet music in front of them on a music stand when performing (or held in front of them in a music folder, in the case of a choir), with the exception of solo instrumental performances of solo pieces, ... |
why do some subreddits have 20+ mods, even though some of them don't do anything? | Some may mod quietly, and never really comment, while others are more known because they constantly comment
Some may have stopped using Reddit, but no one's removed them from the mod list yet
Some may have been made a mod, just because of who the are/who they're friends with
Some may only deal with a certain aspect ... | [
"Mods (short for modifications) are an optional upgrade for characters within the game. Once the player's account reaches level 50, Mods become available to any of their characters that are level 50 or above. There are different categories of mods, each of which yields a different primary effect on the stats of the... |
How is online gaming possible if there must be some delay? | Modern games tend to employ two different techniques simultaneously in order to compensate for lag, but players with lower latency will still have a small advantage.
1. **Server state rewind**: You're playing an FPS at home and you pull the trigger. At that moment, the stuff you see on your screen is already out of d... | [
"There are various methods for reducing or disguising delays, though many of these have their drawbacks and may not be applicable in all cases. If synchronization is not possible by the game itself, the clients may be able to choose to play on servers in geographical proximity to themselves in order to reduce laten... |
how do i begin to invest my money in penny stocks? | Penny stocks are anything but a sure bet, especially if you're trying to day trade and therefore eating brokerage fees against your small amount of principal. If you need a small amount of steady income, you're much better off working your ass off to find a job, living off whatever money you planned to put into penny ... | [
"When it comes to financing a purchase of stocks there are two ways: purchasing stock with money that is currently in the buyer's ownership, or by buying stock on margin. Buying stock on margin means buying stock with money borrowed against the value of stocks in the same account. These stocks, or collateral, guara... |
why do men's jean sizes have inseam and waist dimensions while women's jeans just have numbers (i.e. 4, 5, 6 vs. 32x34)? | Some people are going to hate me for this answer, but at some level many women don't like objective measures of reality and store vendors don't want it. A man for the most part regards the circumference of his waist as a statement of fact even if he isn't particularly pleased with the number. For whatever reason wome... | [
"The waist is typically smaller than the bust and hips, unless there is a high proportion of body fat distributed around it. How much the bust or hips inflect inward, towards the waist, determines a woman's structural shape. The hourglass shape is present in only about 8% of women.\n",
"BULLET::::- Hourglass shap... |
If quarks are supposed to come in quark-antiquark pairs, how is it there are only 3 quarks, and no antiquarks, in protons and neutrons? | Quarks don't have to exist in pairs of quarks and antiquarks. Any QCD bound state must have zero net color charge. There are many ways that you can combine quarks and antiquarks such that their color charges sum to zero.
The main possibilities are a quark and an antiquark (mesons), three quarks (baryons), or three ant... | [
"The quarks are bound together by the strong force, which acts in such a way as to cancel the colour charges within the particle. In a meson, this means a quark is partnered with an antiquark with an opposite colour charge – blue and antiblue, for example – while in a baryon, the three quarks have between them all ... |
How does light reflect in every direction if it is a single particle? | For large systems like light bouncing off the moon, it is important to keep in mind that there are an unimaginably large number of light particles (called photons) bouncing off the moon.
Each one is going in only one direction, but because there are so many, there are always going to be a lot that are going right tow... | [
"To see how, note that we can measure the position of a particle by bouncing light off it – but measuring the position accurately requires light of short wavelength. Light with a short wavelength consists of photons of high energy. If the energy of these photons exceeds , when one hits the particle whose position i... |
what would happen if a blob of water is introduced into vaccum without gravity? | It would boil, whether there is gravity or not, in a vacuum. You could get a spherical shape if you had it in a pressurized environment e.g. on the ISS. This is also not "without gravity" but often what people think of when they say a zero grav environment, since it is in free fall (you and the water could float). | [
"Aside from storage, the main role of the central vacuole is to maintain turgor pressure against the cell wall. Proteins found in the tonoplast (aquaporins) control the flow of water into and out of the vacuole through active transport, pumping potassium (K) ions into and out of the vacuolar interior. Due to osmosi... |
if they have cameras/sensors that clearly show if a baseball is a strike/foul/ball or even if a runner is safe/out on base, why does baseball still use umpires? | Some neutral party needs to make the judgment call, so an umpire is necessary to some extent. Video can assist with this, however, games would take too long if every call was made with reference to video. It's simply easier and faster to have umpires make most of the calls.
Many sports do make use of video for referee... | [
"Despite the warning track's presence, it is common to see outfielders crash into the wall to make a catch, due to a desire to field the play regardless of the outcome and/or because they fail to register the warning in time (as the track is on the ground, an outfielder pursuing a fly ball in the air will be lookin... |
Why is the tongue the fastest healing organ in the body? | is the tongue the fastest healing organ? I always thought it was the cornea... | [
"Because of the tongue's exceptional healing ability, piercings can close very fast. Even completely healed holes can close up in a matter of hours, and larger-stretched holes can close in just a few days. The length of time for the hole to heal varies greatly from person to person – some people with larger-stretch... |
sellers listing items for dramatically under retail on amazon | Not everyone bothers to ask for their $3.50 back.
... it was about that time I realized that the Amazon seller was about 8 stories tall and a crustacean from the protozoic era. | [
"Pricesearcher is an independent e-commerce search engine launched in the UK in 2016 which helps shoppers find the best prices for products online. It does not use the traditional Price Comparison Website (PCW) model adopted by comparison sites such as Moneysupermarket.com and search engines such as Google Shopping... |
Is it pure coincidence that the rotation rates of Mars and Earth are both 24 hours (-4 & +39 min)? | It's just a coincidence, with a large enough set of known planets you could say if it was an uncommon speed. But as you point out, their days are only roughly 24 hours, it's your choice of unit and rounding that creates the illusion if a pattern. | [
"The sidereal rotational period of Mars—its rotation compared to the fixed stars—is only 24 hours, 37 minutes and 22.66 seconds. The solar day lasts slightly longer because of its orbit around the sun which requires it to turn slightly further on its axis.\n",
"Only about 50° of the martian phase curve can be obs... |
What factors led to cultures in Mesopotamia to transition from nomadic to sedentary living? | Before the advent of agriculture most human movements can be roughly explained in terms of climate and resources. The story of our transition from nomadic to sedentary life is no exception, and in fact begins around the end of the last ice age.
The cold and dry climate of the Pleistocene Ice Age made resources relat... | [
"The notion of living a nomadic lifestyle in mobile collectives and following the seasons is older than civilization itself. Such examples of early tribes like Native Americans wandered across the nation, periodically moving location to maximise the advantages to climate and the environment. Throughout old Europe, ... |
when i choose the "skip" option on certain files in a torrent, why do some of them sometimes still download, often even 100% of the file? | The content of a torrent is split into blocks of a fixed size. That's the smallest unit your client can reliably download. Each block can contain one or more files (or parts of them).
When you choose to skip a file, but the block containing this file also contains another file that you didn't choose to skip, the whole... | [
"Due to the nature of this approach, the download of any file can be halted at any time and be resumed at a later date, without the loss of previously downloaded information, which in turn makes BitTorrent particularly useful in the transfer of larger files. This also enables the client to seek out readily availabl... |
Did the American entry into the First World War have a significant impact on the eventual outcome? | Yes, absolutely - though not in the way you might think!
The US came into the war just as Russia was knocked out of it and the Germany high command realised that with the massive manpower and manufacturing base of the US, it was only a matter of time before the war was lost. It was therefore imperative to try and win ... | [
"The war marked American entry into world affairs. Since then, the U.S. has had a significant hand in various conflicts around the world, and entered many treaties and agreements. The Panic of 1893 was over by this point, and the U.S. entered a long and prosperous period of economic and population growth, and techn... |
Are slavs native to Balkans, and if not, who dominated The Balkans before they went there? | The Slavs as a linguistic group didn't arrive in the Balkans until the migration period of the 6th century. Around the same time, the region was also invaded by the Turkic Bulgars, who were gradually Slavicised until all that was left was the name. As to who dominated the Balkans before, the answer is Rome, who ruled t... | [
"The Early Slavs raided the Western Balkans, including Bosnia, in the 6th and early 7th century (amid the Migration Period), and were composed of small tribal units drawn from a single Slavic confederation known to the Byzantines as the \"Sclaveni\" (whilst the related \"Antes\", roughly speaking, colonized the eas... |
How viable is Replacement cloning? | There isn't a lot of promise at all, in fact there is very little research into this at all, our best technology can't even reconnect nerves currently, otherwise all those paraplegics caused by spinal injuries would be able to be "fixed".
I don't know what you have been reading, but it isn't current scientific researc... | [
"Cloning is the method discussed as an option for bringing back extinct species, by extracting the nucleus from a preserved cell from the extinct species and swapping it into an egg of the nearest living relative. This egg can then be inserted into a relative host. It is important to note that this method can only ... |
rogaine, and why i can't use it to grow a beard. | Im actually wondering this myself... | [
"Bort is an English name meaning \"fortified.\" It is also an eastern Ashkenazic surname that refers to a man with a remarkable beard. It originates from the Yiddish word \"bord\" and the German \"Bart,\" which both mean \"beard.\" It may also originate from the Polish word \"borta,\" a loanword from the German \"b... |
A rather short question: How did Australia become a thing? | Well, that's a big question, but the various answers about Australia [in our FAQ on Oceania](_URL_3_) are definitely a good place for you to start, and some answers within that that are directly relevant to your questions include:
* my answer to [Why was Australia colonized? What motivated people to travel so far only... | [
"The history of Australia from 1901–1945 begins with the federation of the six colonies to create the Commonwealth of Australia. The young nation joined Britain in the First World War, suffered through the Great Depression in Australia as part of the global Great Depression and again joined Britain in the Second Wo... |
why do parts of a product cost more to repair than the whole thing? | Say it's a 20c resistor, but the company has a call-out fee, an hourly charge, overcharge you for parts, etc. It might come out higher due to the labour costs where you are compared to costs of shipping + a whole new TV - especially if it's a cheap TV. Another option is that it's older and parts are harder to find (whi... | [
"Repairable components tend to be more expensive than non-repairable components (consumables). This is because for items that are inexpensive to procure, it is often more cost-effective not to maintain (repair) them. Repair costs can be expensive, including costs for the labor for the removal the broken or worn out... |
Why do cows have four stomachs and what does each stomach do? | 4 digestive departments of a cow's stomach region:
1. The Rumen – this is the largest part and holds upto 50 gallons of partially digested food. This is where the ‘cud’ comes from. Good bacteria in the Rumen helps soften and digest the cows food and provides protein for the cow.
2. The Recticulum – this part of the s... | [
"Cattle are ruminants, meaning their digestive system is highly specialized to allow the use of poorly digestible plants as food. Cattle have one stomach with four compartments, the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum, with the rumen being the largest compartment.\n",
"Although the precise shape and size of th... |
relevant to the guy getting his artery pinched, how does the body cope with the constant building pressure through that artery with nothing giving back? | No, that's just one of many arteries in the body. Pinched shut, the highest the pressure can get in that artery is the pressure the heart can produce. | [
"Detecting pressure changes inside an artery from the outside is difficult, whereas volume and flow changes of the artery can well be determined by using e.g. light, echography, impedance, etc. But unfortunately these volume changes are not linearly correlated with the arterial pressure– especially when measured in... |
How do computer components keep track of timings between all of the systems of components? | Generally speaking they don't. There are drifts between components. What is important is that when they access a common bus they latch the clock of the common source [e.g. your PCIe clock].
There are collisions all the time on most buses, that's why they build in mechanisms to detect them and work around.
| [
"For a computer application the timing was still critical, but for a different reason. Conventional computers have a natural \"cycle time\" needed to complete an operation, the start and end of which typically consist of reading or writing memory. Thus the delay lines had to be timed such that the pulses would arri... |
Is sugar unhealthier when refined? | In fact, almost all brown sugars are made by adding molasses to refined white sugar, so as to more carefully control the resulting product. It will contain the same residual chemicals as white sugar. Unrefined sugar such as [muscovado](_URL_0_) is considerably harder to come by (YMMV. Try organic food stores).
Refinin... | [
"Desserts with high sugar are commonly consumed for hedonistic rewards, especially among women. However, high sugar intake tends to increase risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardio-metabolic diseases and compromised oral health. Instead, research showed that honey is beneficial to health with its \"g... |
the scene in trading places with dan ackroyd and eddie murphy where they drive the stock price down and make millions of dollars while at the same time bankrupting the duke brothers. how does this work? | Recent thread on this: _URL_1_
Older thread on this: _URL_0_
My Answer from older thread:
/u/Pobody is right, but to clarify a bit, here's the stages (numbers are made up, just to illustrate):
1.) **That morning** - The Dukes have a fake crop report, saying that there is an orange shortage. They take out a short ... | [
"Algorithmic and high-frequency trading were shown to have contributed to volatility during the May 6, 2010 Flash Crash, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged about 600 points only to recover those losses within minutes. At the time, it was the second largest point swing, 1,010.14 points, and the biggest on... |
How does hilbert spaces describe states of systems? | In quantum mechanics, the state of a system is specified as a vector in a Hilbert space. Hermitian operators on the Hilbert space are associated with observables, in that their eigenvalues are interpreted as the possible outcomes of measuring the observable.
The other key interpretation bit is as follows. Suppose that... | [
"In the theory of discrete dynamical systems, a state space is the set of all possible configurations of a system. For example, a system in queueing theory defining the number of customers in a line would have state space {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}. State spaces can be either infinite or finite. An example of a finite state... |
Is it possible to reflect or focus gravity with some kind of lens or mirror? | Yes, but we don't really have the technology to do that. Here's an example of gravitational lensing, [this picture](_URL_0_) of a distance quasar known as the Einstein Cross shows what seems like 4 copies of it due to the light being bent on it's way to Earth and then continuing onward. [Here's an artist's rendition of... | [
"The use of mirrors avoids chromatic aberration but they produce other types of aberrations. A simple spherical mirror cannot bring light from a distant object to a common focus since the reflection of light rays striking the mirror near its edge do not converge with those that reflect from nearer the center of the... |
When did testing new hires for drugs become standard practice, and why? | Alrighty guys, because I've already had to remove ten comments similar to this, I'm going to leave a top-level mod post here. Please remember when posting here that this is not /r/Politics. We are not interested in contemporary politics, your opinions on current policies of countries, two word answers, one line answers... | [
"In 1967 the IOC began enacting drug testing protocols. They started by randomly testing athletes at the 1968 Winter Olympics. The first Winter Games athlete to test positive for a banned substance was Alois Schloder, a West German hockey player, but his team was still allowed to compete. During the 1970s testing o... |
what were the united states democratic party's general views on gun control in the early 90s? | I'm not a historian, but they were very pro gun control legislation.
The Brady Bill finally came into existence in 1993 after a long fight with gun rights opponents over it's provisions. Interesting enough it was the Pro-gun side that wanted the background checks we currently have included.
The "assault weapon ban" ... | [
"After election losses in 2004, the Democratic Party reexamined its position on gun control which became a matter of discussion, brought up by Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Brian Schweitzer and other Democrats who had won in states where Second Amendment rights are important to many voters. The resulting stance on ... |
Did wooden sailing ships get struck by lightning and catch on fire all the time? Furthermore, later in the age of sail, did magazines explode from this? | It is by chance I have a paper (which is unfortunately for the rest of you in Croatian language) that tried to round up notes in official chronicles and ships logs of any mention of lighting strikes in the Adriatic sea for the period of 1300-1800. Most of the notes are just mentions of storms in passage, but some are r... | [
"Ship breaking, particularly if the ship had been involved in significant events such as the Battle of Jutland, resulted in much of the wood from the ship being turned into miniature barrels, letter racks, and boxes, with small brass plaques attached announcing, for example, \"Made of teak from HMS \"Shipsname\", w... |
Why were armies so much larger in the Punic War than they were during the Thirty Years War? | Is there a particular reason you picked those specific conflicts, as opposed to classical vs medieval? For one thing, we could have chosen much bigger Septimus vs Clodius Albinus (estimated 150,000-300,000 on EACH side) | [
"For the vast majority of the period of its existence, the Polybian levy was at war. This led to great strains on Roman and Italian manpower, but forged a superb fighting machine. During the Second Punic War, fully two-thirds of Roman \"iuniores\" were under arms continuously. In the period after the defeat of Cart... |
If Photons have no mass, then how does sunlight exposure give me Vitamin D? | The photons don't carry Vitamin D. Rather, the ultraviolet rays of light penetrate the first few layers of the epidermis to reach the stratum basale and stratum spinosum. In these layers of the skin, the cells contain 7-dehydrocholesterol which, when hit by ultraviolet rays of light, turn into a form of Vit D.
I don't... | [
"The ultraviolet radiation in sunlight has both positive and negative health effects, as it is both a principal source of vitamin D and a mutagen. A dietary supplement can supply vitamin D without this mutagenic effect. Vitamin D has been suggested as having a wide range of positive health effects, which include st... |
Can a turtle feel something touch its shell? | A turtles shell is part of its bone structure and is used for many metabolic processes (like metabolic depression during anoxic conditions under water), so yes they can. It is quite sensitive because of the nerves that are required for those processes. | [
"Blanding's turtle is a timid turtle and may plunge into water and remain on the bottom for hours when alarmed. If away from water, the turtle will withdraw into its shell. It is very gentle and rarely attempts to bite. It is very agile and a good swimmer.\n",
"Another safety concern is interaction and contact wi... |
why are salmon and tuna more 'meaty' than white fish like cod/haddock/sea bass? | They both have higher fat content than the milder flavored white fleshed fish. Tuna more so than salmon. | [
"Salmon is a common food classified as an oily fish with a rich content of protein and omega-3 fatty acids. In Norway – a major producer of farmed and wild salmon – farmed and wild salmon differ only slightly in terms of food quality and safety, with farmed salmon having lower content of environmental contaminants,... |
why is it when i'm cold my jaw can shiver ridiculously fast, but when i'm warm i can't physically force myself to shiver my jaw that fast? | You can.
However, what you're doing is most likely different, when you attempt shiver manually, it sounds like you're trying to contract your muscles rapidly. Shivering isn't exactly that, it's closer to simply vibrating your muscles, it's not a full contraction. | [
"There has yet to be any peer-reviewed research on the topic. The most plausible theory, is that the shiver is a result of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) getting its signals mixed up between its two main divisions:\n",
"Individuals who scored higher on this factor typically displayed a lack of any movement, f... |
what does it mean to compile code? | As you may know, everything in a computer is represented by a series of 1's and 0's (which themselves represent high and low voltages on transistors, but that's a topic for another time). When the computer runs a program, the program itself is made of a bunch of 1's and 0's.
However, since we still need humans to writ... | [
"Compile is a program that downloads, unpacks, compiles source code tarballs, and installs the resulting executable code, all with a single command (such as codice_25) using simple compilation scripts known as \"recipes\".\n",
"BULLET::::- A subfield of computer programming – process of designing, writing, testin... |
How profound was the influence of Jazz and Blues on American Culture in the twenties? | I'm not sure how we could give you a gauge of just how profound the impact was, but for reference the death of David Brubeck made the front pages of the both the New York Times and Washington Post among other today. He first splashed onto the music scene in the 1950s. Some would argue that jazz music is a uniquely Am... | [
"The 1920s brought new styles of music into the mainstream of culture in avant-garde cities. Jazz became the most popular form of music for youth. Historian Kathy J. Ogren wrote that, by the 1920s, jazz had become the \"dominant influence on America's popular music generally\" Scott DeVeaux argues that a standard h... |
why do antivirus programs identify videogame cracks as dangerous viruses or trojans? | It depends. With some code, especially in some games, it can be misidentified as a virus due to the fact it is similar to a virus' code, marking it as a virus or trojan. On top of this, some malicious uploaders put viruses or trojans into your download, so that, when you run it, it activates the malicious code. Other t... | [
"Most anti-virus software and intrusion detection systems (IDS) attempt to locate malicious code by searching through computer files and data packets sent over a computer network. If the security software finds patterns that correspond to known computer viruses or worms, it takes appropriate steps to neutralize the... |
What's the fewest celled multicellular life? Are there any 2-celled organisms? | There certainly is something in between: a vast array of small creatures. The simplest of which and the smallest integrated multicellular organism is the [Tetrabaena Socialis](_URL_1_). This volvocid forms a colony of four ovoid cells, each with two equal flagella, two contractile vacuoles, and a pyrenoid and a red eye... | [
"\"Parakaryon myojinensis\" (\"incertae sedis\") is a single-celled organism known by a unique example. \"This organism appears to be a life form distinct from prokaryotes and eukaryotes\", with features of both.\n",
"The simplest definitions of \"multicellular,\" for example \"having multiple cells,\" could incl... |
Why is it that in airliners, the cockpit windows are polygonal whereas the passenger windows have to be round to avoid stress concentrations? | Cockpit windows are designed to withstand bird strikes and are much stronger than passenger windows. | [
"This distinctive style of bodywork has a downward-sloping front window bay on the upper deck, with both top and bottom edges angled downwards. The side windows are square-cornered. A large double-curvature upper deck windscreen (either single-piece or two-piece) is one of the most distinctive features.\n",
"Wind... |
In 1939, the eastern half of Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union. What was life like under the Soviet occupation and what happened to the previously Soviet occupied territories after their liberation from the Germans? | During the Soviet occupation, one of the first things they did was to eliminate any chance of resistance to their occupation. The NKVD already had a large number of Polish Army officers and enlisted in prisoner camps, and to these numbers added university professors, lawyers, police officers, priests, politicians, ess... | [
"In September 1939, at the outbreak of World War II and in accordance with the secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was invaded from the west by Nazi Germany and from the east by the Soviet Union. Volhynia was split by the Soviets into two oblasts, Rovno and Volyn of the Ukrainian SSR. Upon the an... |
i have a microwave oven that has a spinning carousel that turns clockwise sometimes and counterclockwise at others with no discernible pattern. why and how does it do this? | Cheap motor. It will continue spinning in either direction, and starting direction depends on the exact time it's started (from the alternating power supply) | [
"Thus, in Nordström's theory, if the nearly elliptical orbit is transversed counterclockwise, the long axis slowly rotates \"clockwise\", whereas in general relativity, it rotates \"counterclockwise\" six times faster. In the first case we may speak of a periastrion \"lag\" and in the second case, a periastrion \"a... |
psychologists, psychiatrists, and other experts of reddit, what makes one an addict? | Questions similar to this come up fairly often, and I always point out the following:
**Addiction** is *not* the same thing as **Physical Dependency**.
If you are physically dependent on a substance (such as nicotine or alcohol) then it is 100% the substance you are physically dependent on. That's *not* "in your min... | [
"An addict is more prone to depression, anxiety, and anger. Both the addict's environment, genetics and biological tendency contribute to their addiction. People with very severe personality disorders are more likely to become addicts. Addictive substances usually stop primary and secondary neuroses, meaning people... |
Why do planets have axial tilts which deviate greatly from the normal of their orbital plane? | I am no astronomer, but in the off chance this doesn't get answered, I'll give it a go.
Their orbit around the sun, as you said, is planar. However, the gravitational force acting on each planetary body is relatively uniform. That is to say, the gravity pulls no more on the poles than anywhere else on the planet. The ... | [
"Planets rotate at varying rates and thus may take a slightly oblate shape because of the centrifugal force. With such an oblate shape, the gravitational attraction will deviate somewhat from that of a homogeneous sphere. This phenomenon is quite noticeable for artificial Earth satellites, especially those in low o... |
When DNA is copied where do the new nucleotides that create more DNA come from? | Nucleotides can be synthesized "de novo" from precursor molecules (obtained from the breakdown of food, for example). The major organ involved in this process is the liver. However, nucleotides can also be [recycled](_URL_0_) through a process that synthesizes nucleotides from the components of degraded nucleotides. | [
"When DNA is copied, the two strands of the old DNA are pulled apart by enzymes; then they pair up with new nucleotides and then close. This produces two new pieces of DNA, each containing one strand from the old DNA and one newly made strand. This process is not predictably perfect as proteins attach to a nucleoti... |
what are the main features of the unity engine? its advantages and disadvantages against other game engines? | The Unity Engine is a 3d based engine used primary for games.
The Unitiy's Engines advantages are
1.) Run on almost every platfrom (Unreal 3 for example only runs on PC, Window, PS3 with a Lite version running on Iphone)
2.) Comes with a easy to use user interface that is visual and lower the amount of programming... | [
"Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Inc.'s Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X-exclusive game engine. As of 2018, the engine had been extended to support more than 25 platforms. The engine can be used to create three-di... |
What is it that actually transfers light in a perfect vacuum? | You do not need particles to move for energy to exist. Light consists of an oscillating electric field that produces an oscillating magnetic field that produces an oscillating electric field and so on. These fields happily exist separately from particles. | [
"In nature, a light source emits a ray of light which travels, eventually, to a surface that interrupts its progress. One can think of this \"ray\" as a stream of photons traveling along the same path. In a perfect vacuum this ray will be a straight line (ignoring relativistic effects). Any combination of four thin... |
i've been hearing a lot on reddit lately about how the baby boomer generation "screwed over" the generations to follow. what specifically have they done that was wrong? it seems like they were just dealt a better hand by circumstance and weren't able to control the bad things to follow. | Because of the size of their generation, the Boomers caused a lot of disruptions in society as they passed through, especially in the education system in the 1950s and 1960s, and the healthcare system today. There simply wasn't the capacity for them at the time and those systems were strained.
Most of America's curre... | [
", it was reported that, as a generation, boomers had tended to avoid discussions and long-term planning for their demise. However, since 1998 or earlier, there has been a growing dialogue on how to manage aging and end-of-life issues as the generation ages. In particular, a number of commentators have argued that ... |
Does applying water or ice to your blood pulses actually cool you off? | The most effective places to place ice are neck (carotid/jugular), armpits (axillary) and groin (femoral). It's simple physics that these areas have the largest volume of blood circulating closest to the surface of the skin and thus dissipate heat more effectively. | [
"Applying ice, or even cool water, to a tissue injury has an anti-inflammatory effect and is often suggested as an injury treatment and pain management technique for athletes. One common approach is rest, ice, compression and elevation. Cool temperatures inhibit local blood circulation, which reduces swelling in th... |
what are spectral lines and how do we use them to determine what light has passed? | If you direct light through a prism, you can spread it out and look at all the different frequencies it's composed of.
If you look very closely, you'll notice that certain frequencies are ["missing"](_URL_0_) (or at least severely reduced in intensity).
That means that somewhere between when this light was emitted, a... | [
"Spectral lines are the result of interaction between a quantum system (usually atoms, but sometimes molecules or atomic nuclei) and a single photon. When a photon has about the right amount of energy to allow a change in the energy state of the system (in the case of an atom this is usually an electron changing or... |
Earlier today i saw two clouds going in opposite directions, how is this possible ? | Air at different elevations is nearly always traveling in different directions and speeds, your clouds were in two different layers. The motion of air is anything but uniform at all elevations.
| [
"Two common cloud patterns seen during this time are a chinook arch overhead, and a bank of clouds (also referred to as a cloud wall) obscuring the mountains to the west. It appears to be an approaching storm, but does not advance any further east.\n",
"These patterns are formed from a phenomenon known as a Kármá... |
How did it came about that we do not call Japan an Empire today even though its current head of state Akihito is still officially referred to as "Emperor"? | I will speak in very broad generalizations here.
Japan was a very famous, literal empire in the '40s, and after their capitulation in WWII, their empire was dismantled, both their territorial holdings, and most of the functioning government.
The emperor was not dethroned, for political reasons. That's why Japan has an... | [
"Currently, the Emperor of Japan is the only head of state in the world with the English title of \"emperor\". The Imperial House of Japan is the oldest continuing monarchical house in the world. The historical origins of the emperors lie in the late Kofun period of the 3rd–7th centuries AD, but according to the tr... |
why do companies with a large amount of cash still issue debt? | Taking on debt spreads financial risk across a longer period of time.
If I shell out 100% today, I'm out 100% today, and 100% tomorrow of my investment goes south. I'm screwed the day after tomorrow.
If I shell out 2% today, I'm out 2% today and 2% for the next 4 years, so if things don't work out, I can continue to ... | [
"There have been at least two cases of companies seeking to restructure their debt (i.e. pay creditors less), claiming that debt they had issued was not in compliance with sharia. In a 2009 court filing Investment Dar, a Kuwaiti company claimed a transaction \"was taking deposits at interest\".\n",
"In 2014, for ... |
why "everything" is one word and "every time" is two | Every time I hear this everyday question I wonder will I be asked it every day. | [
"In ordinary conversation, \"everything\" usually refers only to the totality of things relevant to the subject matter. When there is no expressed limitation, \"everything\" may refer to the universe, the world.\n",
"One can make the statement that \"anything\" is a specific word where \"everything\" can be seen ... |
why do some people find it hard to eat enough, while others over-eat? | Leptin sensitivity, insulin sensitivity, ghrelin and other hormones cause different appetite levels for different people. That's an oversimplification but basically leptin is one of the main hormones that puts the "brakes" on hunger. Thinner people have high leptin sensitivity and therefore recognize feelings of fulln... | [
"Difficulty eating is most often caused by difficulty swallowing. This symptom is common in people after a stroke, people with Parkinson's disease or who have multiple sclerosis, and people with dementia. The most common way to help people with trouble swallowing is to change the texture of their food to be softer.... |
How can you "see" your breath when it's cold? | The tempature drop from body temp to outside temp causes the gaseous water from your breath to condense to liquid forming tiny water droplets that refract light differently and cause the visual effect that we see when we breath out in the cold. | [
"In humans, the diving reflex is not induced when limbs are introduced to cold water. Mild bradycardia is caused by subjects holding their breath without submerging the face in water. When breathing with the face submerged, the diving response increases proportionally to decreasing water temperature. However, the g... |
How was the Dutch military rebuilt after the Second World War and what were the consequences for the Indonesian War of Independence only 2 years later? | The forces that were used in the Dutch East Indies were part of two groups. There was the "Mariniersbrigade" which was trained in the United States during the Second World War. It consisted of a few Dutch volunteers who were preparing for the war versus Japan, their primair goal was to liberate the Dutch East Indies. H... | [
"The Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation during World War II ended Dutch rule and encouraged the previously suppressed Indonesian independence movement. In May 1940, early in World War II, the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany. The Dutch East Indies declared a state of siege and in July redirected ex... |
how do tarrifs work? | So let's say that I'm building widgets in my factory in Canada. These are fine widgets. I make them for $70 each, and they sell (to stores) for $80. There are also factories in America that produce and sell widgets at around the same price. That puts us in competition; after all, people only need to buy so many widgets... | [
"A tarpaulin ( , ), or tarp, is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant or waterproof material, often cloth such as canvas or polyester coated with polyurethane, or made of plastics such as polyethylene. In some places such as Australia, and in military slang, a tarp may be known as a hootch. Tarpaulins ... |
when a movie is said to have begun "filming", typically how long is this process vs. the rest of the movie making process? | Well that depends. If you have a stellar editor, than they might be able to finish up rather quickly, and you have a stellar crew, they might finish a scene in one wrap. But generally speaking, actually filming a movie takes alot longer than most people think. You usually end up filming one scene in a 12 hour work day.... | [
"The film took 3 years to make: one year of thinking and planning, one year of production, and one year to edit and finish it. The film was scripted in advance, though changes were made during filming and production. Of the three years, only six weeks were spent shooting on location.\n",
"Filming began in the Nov... |
Who paid for the early running water and electricity systems in America? How did they work? | This is not my area of expertise, but my grandfather had a role in rural electrification in Kansas, so I know a bit.
During the Roosevelt administration a program of rural electrification, supported by co-ops (many which still exist in some form today) brought power to the farms of the Midwest. It was a large undert... | [
"The system is believed to be the first pump-powered water supply to be implemented in what is now the United States. The town of Boston, Massachusetts had a municipal water supply as early as 1652, but it was purely powered by gravity.\n",
"Electricity was available in 1905 and city water in 1929. Manufacturing ... |
Why did the British Empire collapse while the Soviet Union remained a superpower after WW2? | So /u/ThePutback wrote about the differences in how the nations were "devastated" in the war, but I wanted to expand on another difference between the British Empire and the Soviet Union:
The Soviet Union was the ideological leader of an increasingly significant portion of the world in the wake of WW2.
So while the B... | [
"The consequence of fighting two World Wars in a relatively short amount of time, along with the emergence of the United States and the Soviet Union rise to superpower status after the end of World War II, both of which were hostile to British imperialism and along with the change in ideology led to a rapid wave of... |
why do progressive countries put their focus and resources on free healthcare and free education and not on free food, free clothing and free shelter? | Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Basically education and health care is a much more cost effective way to reach the same end goal. Plus if you provide shelter food etc free to everyone then lots of people might just stop working. | [
"Other countries have an explicit policy to ensure and support access for all of its citizens, to fund health research, and to plan for adequate numbers, distribution and quality of health workers to meet healthcare goals. Many governments around the world have established universal health care, which takes the bur... |
Why do certain instruments have to transpose to concert pitches? For example, why does a trumpet play a C instead of concert B-flat? Was this some sort of musical evolution? | I can answer this for the brass more convincingly than for the woodwinds, perhaps someone else can fill in those blanks.
Back before the valve was invented, composers would write music in a certain key. The trombone has a slide which enables it to change length at will, meaning it can play in Eb as easily as in F. ... | [
"Many transposing instruments are pitched in B-flat major, including the clarinet, trumpet, tenor saxophone, and soprano saxophone. As a result, B-flat major is one of the most popular keys for concert band compositions.\n",
"The sopranino saxophone and E♭ clarinet sound in the concert pitch ( C ) a minor third h... |
Is Civil War revisionist history going on? | Oh man, the US Civil War has seen revisionism since before it was over. | [
"In the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, new battles took place over the construction of memory and the meaning of historical events. The earliest historians to study Reconstruction and the Radical Republican participation in it were members of the Dunning School, led by William Archibald Dunning and ... |
Is there an effect the moon has on the atmosphere similar to the effect it has on the ocean by creating the tides? | These comments are a bit misleading. The atmospheric tide caused by the sun is overwhelmingly due to thermal tides, much unlike the gravitational tides caused by the moon and to a lesser extent, the sun. The moon's (and the sun's) gravity has little to do with atmospheric tides. | [
"The theoretical amplitude of oceanic tides caused by the Moon is about at the highest point, which corresponds to the amplitude that would be reached if the ocean possessed a uniform depth, there were no landmasses, and the Earth were rotating in step with the Moon's orbit. The Sun similarly causes tides, of which... |
if hypothetically every u.s. state successfully seceded into a sovereign state, would the federal government reign over the last remaining state? how would this work? | This scenario would never happen, the federal government wouldn't allow it.
But I'll play it out. No, the federal government would dissolve. If the states decided to break apart the federal government would fall apart because it exists as a unified front for the states. | [
"The clause has served this same function since then whenever a proposal to partition an existing state or states has come before Congress. New breakaway states are permitted to join the Union, but only with the proper consents. Of the 37 states admitted to the Union by Congress, three were set off from an already ... |
How did Greece didn't see the impending threat of Roman empire and do something to stop it ? | First off, there was no such thing as "Greece" whilst the Roman Republic was on the rise.
There was a multitude of indepenent Greek city states, such as Athens, Corinth or Sparta. Sometimes, these would align in leagues like the Achaean or Aetolian leagues, to defend themselves against some kind of threat or threaten... | [
"The reasons for Rome's intervention in Greece from the 3rd century BC are many: a call for help from the cities of Illyria; the fight against Philip V of Macedon, whose naval policy troubled Rome and who had been an ally of Hannibal’s; or assistance to Macedon’s adversaries in the region (Pergamon, Rhodes and the ... |
has obama done a good job as potus? | Reddit is a terrible place to find this out.
As for my opinion (which is all you'll get here, with biased sources), Obama is the 5th-best president in our country's history. All the good he has done must be accompanied with the reminder that he has faced the most blatant and extreme obstructionism in the history of t... | [
"He has also been referenced by the media as an expert concerning Barack Obama's political strategies as related to unemployment ratings and economic policy. Darity criticized Obama's October 2011 economic strategy as \"bribing the private sector to put people back to work. I was hoping that there would be some eff... |
Why did the Great War last so long? Why did people in the West keep fighting? | Why has any democracy carried on with a war that was going only so-so? Look at the Vietnam war, I think it took 6+ years of fighting before a simple majority of the country thought the US should get out.
To answer your question in a word, pride. Humans don't do a good job admitting that we might be wrong. Especially w... | [
"The experiences of the war in the west are commonly assumed to have led to a sort of collective national trauma afterward for all of the participating countries. The optimism of 1900 was entirely gone and those who fought became what is known as \"the Lost Generation\" because they never fully recovered from their... |
why is there still a slight delay on my tv even when i have game mode turned on? compared to crt tv's seeming to be instant? | Why was this downvoted? | [
"All first-party cartridges and most third-party software titles feature a 12-second pause before presenting the game select screen. This delay results from an intentional loop in the console's BIOS to enable on-screen display of the ColecoVision brand. Companies like Parker Brothers, Activision, and Micro Fun bypa... |
Fictional historical people | Prester John. 500 years of European stories about a Christian monarch in India, or Central Asia, or Ethiopia. The Wikipedia entry is pretty good: _URL_0_
(I've been fascinated by that guy since I first heard of him, but can't claim any expertise about him.) | [
"The prototypes of real historical figures operate in the story. The main figure, Wanderer - is one of the most mysterious personalities during the last years of the Russian Empire – Grigori Rasputin. The faithful fan of the Wanderer \"Fanny Zarubina\" (who is derisively called \"The Cow\") is Anna Vyrubova, the la... |
what would happen if you pulled your keys out of the ignition while driving? | 70s and 80s GM cars had a weak retention pin, I remember it was always funny to reach over and rip the keys out of your friend's ignition while they were driving to see their reaction. Stupid, but funny. | [
"When the key is turned in the ignition cylinder, the car's computer transmits a radio signal to the transponder circuit. The circuit has no battery; it is energized by the radio signal itself. The circuit typically has a computer chip that is programmed to respond by sending a coded signal back to the car's comput... |
how do machines generate cold air | Air conditioning and refrigerators use a property of gas known as Gay-Lussac's Law. This basically states that as you increase pressure on a gas, the temperature increases. Conversely, as you decrease pressure of a gas, it absorbs energy and becomes cooler.
So AC and refrigerators work by compressing a coolant. This c... | [
"Air-cooled and evaporative cooled chillers are intended for outdoor installation and operation. Air-cooled machines are directly cooled by ambient air being mechanically circulated directly through the machine's condenser coil to expel heat to the atmosphere. Evaporative cooled machines are similar, except they im... |
Are there any creatures that use endothermic reactions for defense? | Lots of things are exothermic. Combustion, for instance. Very few biological reactions are strongly endothermic enough to be useful as a defense mechanism.
"Get back or I'll freeze you to death!" | [
"Kolbert points out that there is an evolutionary arms race, in which each species must be equipped to defend against their potential predators, and need to be more fit than their competition. A species has no defense if it encounters a new fungus, virus, or bacterium. This can be extremely deadly, as it was in the... |
Does the 'space' inside a black hole move faster than the speed of light? | *EDIT: Multiple edits in many places. Apologies for that.*
I wish people would stop thinking in terms of speed when it comes to black holes. It's a very confusing way to describe it. Seems simple at first, but it leads you into error later.
A much more useful way to think of a BH is via topology. When inside the even... | [
"As a black hole rotates, it twists spacetime in the direction of the rotation at a speed that decreases with distance from the event horizon. This process is known as the Lense–Thirring effect or frame-dragging. Because of this dragging effect, an object within the ergosphere cannot appear stationary with respect ... |
Did the Ottoman Caliph actually hold power over the Muslim ummah, or was it just a ceremonious title? | I'll try to answer your question, sorry if it doesn't satisfy you
It was mostly the latter. First of all. generally speaking (with exceptions, like in the Muslim kingdoms/communities in the Indian Ocean), the classical concept of a single caliph for the whole Islamic community had had no force since the 13th century w... | [
"The Ottoman Dynasty embodied the Ottoman Caliphate since the fourteenth century, starting with the reign of Murad I. The Ottoman Dynasty kept the title Caliph, power over all Muslims, as Mehmed's cousin Abdülmecid II took the title. The Ottoman Dynasty left as a political-religious successor to Muhammad and a lead... |
Britons during the Anglo-Saxon period? | A book which will answer most, if not all, of your questions is T.M. Charles-Edwards' magisterial new book (now released in paperback, although it's still something of a doorstop at 795 pages) [*Wales and the Britons 350-1064*](_URL_0_), (Oxford, 2013). As you can see from the contents page, this is a detailed study of... | [
"The Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain during the 6th century marked the beginning of a decline in the language, as it was gradually replaced by Old English. Some Brittonic speakers migrated to Armorica and Galicia. By 700, Brittonic was mainly restricted to North West England and Southern Scotland, Wales, Cornwall a... |
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